{ Inspiration } Aisles

I had never thought about decorating the aisle I would be walking down. In my wedding blog stalking, I started seeing all these pretty pictures of different ways that aisles had been decorated. It got me to thinking... Outdoor August wedding in the early evening... Maybe a little gussying up would be nice! There are lost of styles to choose from. Check out some of these beauties!

Did you chose to decorate your aisle or not? What effected your decision?

{ Venues } Ceremony & Reception

It's been a while, but I thought I would let you all know... We're all booked! After days and weeks and hours spent looking for, emailing, and researching venues, we are all done searching. I really thought that looking for a venue was going to kill me. Carl and I knew we wanted an outdoor ceremony. We also knew we wanted to book a place that had ceremony and reception on site. I had been trying to stay within a certain ring around the Twin Cities area. We wanted to make sure there were hotels in the area and all that good stuff...

There was a time when, during the search, I yelled at my computer. I had sent out just about my one millionth inquiry and I might have snapped a little. Was it too much to ask that a place be somewhat affordable and pretty and do ceremony and reception on site?!!

It wasn't until I really started to spreadsheet out every cost and detail that I got good at narrowing down all the options. We only visited three sites and narrowed down all the other options. The first place was a dud. The second was pretty for a reception, but lacked any sort of good ceremony site. The third one was juuuuuust right.

Check it out! We have access to a patio attached to our room...

There are loads of pretty settings for photographs...

Not to mention the ceremony site. The pergola is beautiful! It's actually getting moved by next spring to be framed by a pond and a willow tree. I'm in love!

The reception hall comes draped, there is a fire place and a separate breezeway (which would be awesome for the little photobooth-y thingy I want to create... cause you know, why not?). And... chandelier! Again... in love. I'm super excited to plan out the table decor and all the other details.

That's two big things off of the list! Dress bought, site booked! Now we're rolling!

How did you find your wedding venue? Did you have any particulars you were looking for that made the search tough?   

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Five

To bring you up to speed with this last installment, we had left a beautiful tree for a secluded area on our way to the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy, then we were on our way to Stone Arch Bridge, but found another spot we liked better. Finally, we reached the end of the trail: Mill City Park.

The Mill City ruins are pretty cool. From the Mill City website:

Mill City Museum is built into the ruins of the Washburn A Mill, along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The original A Mill, built in 1874, was leveled by a flour dust explosion that claimed 18 lives. That explosion and the resulting fire destroyed much of the riverfront business area, cutting Minneapolis’ milling capacity in half.

So, basically, it exploded and now we have this pretty park area with it's historically preserved remnants. History geekery? Yep. I dig it.

We wandered around and found a spot to set our last section of pictures. Here we go!

We had a great time taking pictures with Kate. It was a long day with a lot of walking and clothes changing (this was another fun spot in which I wiggled into a dress, trying to be subtle, while people walked around on the bridge above us, and Carl changed his pants behind a chunk of the ruins... I think by the end of the day we were pro at it! After all the walking and photos, we rounded out the night with a nice German meal at the Black Forest Inn. It was a rewarding meal after our journey!

Check out Kate's website! She's stellar and we loved working with our friend on these great photos.

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Four

Catching up, we had left a beautiful tree for a secluded area on our way to the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy, and now we were on our way to Stone Arch Bridge.

We stumbled over the end of the Minneapolis Slut Walk and found our way to the main bridge when we spotted something even better... A little wooden bridge surrounded by trees down closer to the Mississippi river.

A search for the entrance ensued! When we found it and made our way to the bridges, Kate snapped these great photos:

 

After we were done here, we had one last stop to make... Stick around for our final set!

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Three

So we started in a tree, found a secluded area, and then headed to our next destination: the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy (like my technical name for it? Can you tell I went to an out of state college?).

It was crowded there that day. It might have been that it was possibly the last nice day in fall, or it might have been all the new students still eager to run around campus on that 'back in school' high. Or it might have been a fire drill... who knows.

I love the Minneapolis skyline, so Kate framed us with the skyline in the picture and caught these fun photos:

We were then headed off to the Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge, but as we got on the bridge, we saw something that might have been better...

Stick around for part four!